


Mrs Broad and the Case of the Sneezing Badger

by feroxargentea



Category: Master and Commander - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:57:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feroxargentea/pseuds/feroxargentea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs Broad tells it like it is.</p><p>Written for Sharpiefan's Master and Commander Minor Characters Challenge, for the prompt: <i>Mrs Broad dealing with any of the people/creatures/items coming with or left behind by Dr Maturin</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Mrs Broad and the Case of the Sneezing Badger

 

 

I told ’im so. I sez to ’im, Doctor Maturin sir, I sez, you can’t leave a beast in a coal-’ole without it goes an’ gets itself a cold. Stands to reason, don’t it? I mean, it’s colder than a witch’s whatsit in there, come winter, ain’t it?

But does ’e listen to me? Does ’e bloody ’eck as like. Gentleman ’e may be, an’ learned an’ all that, but ’e ain’t got the sense ’e was born with.

“Why, Mrs Broad my dear,” ’e sez to me, with ’is eyes all big like a calf what’s just sat on a thistle—like ’e does, you know—“Why, Mrs Broad,” ’e sez, “the creature is a native, quite accustomed to the cold, and it need stay only a couple of days until I find alternative accommodation for it. The poor thing shall be no trouble, I am sure, and it needs feeding but once a day, which Emily or Sarah might easily do.”

As if them blessed girls ain’t got enough to do, what wi’ them prize-fights up the road an’ all them lot coming for their wet twice or thrice a day, an’ me run off me feet, what with fetching an’ carrying for ’em. You ain’t going to see me fetching for a four-legged beast an’ all. But the Doctor, ’e looks at me, ’opeful-like, an’ I ain’t got the ’eart to tell ’im no, ’ave I?

“Just for a couple of days, then, sir,” I sez, like the soft-’earted nelly I am, “an’ I shan’t be sending Sarah to Smithfield special, neither. If it’s that ’ungry, it can ’ave that old bit o’ mutton what the cat got at.”

Well, the Doctor, ’is face lights up, an’ that’s why you can’t never tell ’im no, the bugger. All fire an’ ’thusiasm, ’e is, an’ ’e takes me down to the coal-’ole an’ opens the door an’ shows me the creature.

An’ it’s a bloody badger, ain’t it? Nothin’ special about it neither, just a sad-faced old badger with its stripes all muddied up, an’ it’s covered, it’s bloody-well COVERED in fleas an’ ticks an’ the Lord knows what else. It looks up at me an’ I sees it’s got its nose torn an’ its forelegs bitten, an’ I know the Doctor’s been an’ gone an’ taken it off a pack of dogs what was baiting it, an’ I can’t say no, can I?

The bugger.

I do try.

“Oh sir,” I sez reprovingly, “Oh sir, just look at them fleas!”

“Quite harmless, I do assure you,” ’e sez quickly. “Parry Care-arse.”

I lift an eyebrow an’ wait for ’im to realise ’e’s speaking foreign at me.

“Parry Care-arse, the badger-flea,” ’e sez. “An entirely different species from those that infest domestic Carnivora. They shan’t spread to you or your fine puss-cats, Mrs Broad.”

Oh, like I ain’t never ’eard that one before! But I’m all about to give in anyway—anything for a quiet life, me—when that blessed badger lifts its snout an’ it SNEEZES.

Proper sneeze it was, too, none of yer puny sniffles. “Wah-CHOO!” sez the stripy fiend, an’ the dead was stirring in their graves, I can tell you.

“Wait a bleedin’ minute, sir, that thing’s coughing like a consumptive,” I sez. “That ain’t right, an’ it ain’t safe, an’ I ain’t – begging your pardon for being disobliging, sir, but I ain’t ’aving it in the Grapes.”

Now, don’t you go a-tellin’ me them badgers don’t get the consumption, ’cos this one, it was proper sick. An’ what’s more, them doctors, them learned men, they’ll tell you the consumption’s inborn or it’s from the falling damps or some such ’ogwash, but anyone what’s seen the way it spreads through a village can tell you it’s catching. It’s catching, or my name’s not Mrs Broad. Which it is.

Well, Dr Maturin, ’e pulls ’is mooncalf face, ’cos common sense is too much for a learned cove like ’im, ain’t it?

“But Mrs Broad,” ’e sez, “surely the creature can do no harm in the coal-hole. I am not asking you to harbour it in the parlour, for all love.”

I gives ’im a look, as much as to say, ask away, cully, an’ see where that gets you. I don’t say it, mind. I know where me bread’s coming from.

“Oh, very well,” ’e sez. “If you will permit it to stay two days, I shall feed it myself and have Padeen clean out the shed afterwards. Would that suffice?”

Well, I gives in to ’im, then. I gives in, an’ that infernal beast stays in me coal-’ole them two days, which you could ’ear it coughing away to itself all that blessed time, an’ then the Doctor an’ that Padeen fellow of ’is come an’ they took it off.

I asked ’im about it a couple of months later—casual-like, you know. I sez to ’im, “Doctor Maturin,” I sez, “what became of that old badger of yours after you’d took it away?”

An’ ’e puts down ’is book, an’ after them few seconds what ’e always takes to put ’is mind back in the real world, ’e sez, “Why yes, it was most interesting. A congenital malformation of the metatarsals, I believe, though Dr Mellor insisted it might be of traumatic origin.”

Trust me, _I’m_ not easily put off by the Doctor’s nonsense. I know ’im of old. “What, you cut the poor beast up?” I sez.

“Ah. Yes, my dear Mrs Broad,” ’e sez, “unfortunately the creature survived only a short while after we moved it from your own fine establishment.”

“And what, might I ask, did it die of?” I sez.

The Doctor, ’e looks shifty. “Something in the respiratory line would be my provisional diagnosis,” ’e sez, but ’e’s not meeting my eyes.

Respiratory line, my arse. That beast was carried off by its cough, an’ it was the bloody consumption what done it, or my name’s not Mrs Broad. Which, like I sez to you earlier, it is. I said to ’im from the start, I said exactly ’ow it would be, but does anyone listen to a word I say? Bloody physicians, more trouble than they’re worth, they are, spreading disease around like that! They want culling, the lot of ’em, if you ask my opinion. Which you did.

They don’t mean any ’arm, I’ll give ’em that. And they pays well. They just need someone what’s got enough commonsense to make ’em toe the line. Someone what knows what’s what. Someone what’s got a bit of bloody gumption.

I’m a busy woman but God knows I does me best.

So... pint of porter, was it, sir?

 

 


End file.
